


Humanity's Rainbow

by Download



Category: Half-Life, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Post-Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Science Experiments, Science Fiction, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29877822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Download/pseuds/Download
Summary: After a miscommunication between levels of command, the Turians invade the alien colony of Shanxi.The aliens had minimal ships - certainly not enough to evacuate every inhabitant - but somehow not a single sophant alien was found on the surface of the colony. What they did find though was an unknown piece of alien technology thought to be at the centre of this mystery.
Kudos: 7





	Humanity's Rainbow

**Chapter One:**

**Ablation**

“Maw-three disembarking.”

The over-strength platoon disembarked from the dropship and fanned out, weapons up.

They were in a square of some sort; shops selling alien foods in alien languages, tables and chairs scattered and knocked over wash of the landing craft, a few trees dotted a square of green grass. His armour’s sensors chimed back atmospheric details, closely matching the composition estimated by orbital sensors.

“All clear?” he asked on the squad com. There was five seconds of silence before he was satisfied no one had spotted anything unusual. There were no souls in sight.

He glanced again at the map he had done his best to memorise on the way down, double checking his planned route. He had been assigned to take the hardened structure on the edge of the city while other teams landed to secure other sites that seemed valuable.

Seemed was the key word, they knew nothing about this race; they could only make best guesses. Still, there must be a reason for the fortified utilitarian structure.

They’d approached over the edge of the city before sweeping towards the facility, using the mismatched shapes of the city to obfuscate themselves from enemy radar systems, but they never got a blip on the electromagnetic spectrum at them from anything that looked like radar or any sort of targeting system.

Satisfied with the route laid out on his HUD, he issued the waymarkers to the squad leaders.

“First squad in front, third behind.”

It was in the waymarker instructions, but it was best to confirm with verbal orders.

“Yes, sir,” the three squad leaders chimed back over the radio.

It wasn’t far to the structure – only 200 metres, but there hadn’t been a good landing location any closer.

The well-seasoned squads stepped carefully through the street. Veterans of many campaigns against pirates and slavers they kept their eyes on the windows and the rooftops for anyone that might shoot down at them; the bane of urban fighting.

“ _Invaders, you are warned that the colony self-destruct will activate in two-one-hundred and sixty-fifths of a planetary revolution.”_

The sound was coming from some sort of public announcement system. He didn’t recognise a single word and his translator couldn’t make heads or tails of it either, but it was distinctly asaroid; level in tone, smooth and without any of the sharpness of turian speech. In fact, now he thought about it, the scattered chairs he had seem were also very asaroid in shape, unsuitable for a turian’s body shape.

He packaged up the audio and forwarded it to command for processing. The data would help build a language pack for the translators.

He got a flash message from first squad that they had halted, followed by another a second later that they had identified some sort of wildlife. He brought up the video feed from one of first squad’s members to see some sort of small furry four-legged animal. It was spotted brown, black and white, a long tail casually flipping behind it as it watched the turians. It had a very short snout and distinct triangular ears. As the creature looked off to the side he could see a red collar around its neck, so probably a pet of some sort and not wildlife.

“Keep moving,” he ordered, satisfied the animal was too small to pose any threat to a turian in armour.

There was no other life as they moved through the street. It looked like the inhabitants had left in a hurry; doors were left open, food left on tables some of it even uneaten, objects abandoned on the ground or knocked over. They could have run the distance in a few dozen seconds, but urban fighting took care and observation, so each man and woman trod carefully, eyes and sensors out for boobytraps or hiding enemy forces.

He checked with the other teams to see what they had found. Of the twenty-eight teams deployed only one other had encountered wildlife or pets (they weren’t sure which) and no one had seen any sign of sophant life.

He hadn’t seen any local ground transportation until he reached the structure. There were several vehicles lined up in rows out the front. They used wheels and several were mud-covered. The city wasn’t large so it made sense to not need a vehicle in the city, so these were presumably for venturing out of what was clearly a young colony. The use of wheels seemed odd though to his eyes.

“ _Invaders, you are warned that the colony self-destruct will activate in one-one-hundred and tenth of a planetary revolution.”_

Though it didn’t register to him, the similarity of the new announcement to the previous one was noted by his armour’s computer systems. Quickly he assigned his armour’s VI to check if a language pack had been put together yet but it returned a negative.

As they got closer to what was clearly the entrance – a heavy armoured blast door wider than one of their ground vehicles – he noted more objects abandoned on the ground. Some were clearly litter but some seemed very odd; a computer device of some sort, a bag of various plant matter he suspected were edible to the locals, and lastly a painting in a frame. If you recoloured it the painting would easily have passed as an asari, it was surprising enough that he paused for a moment before noting the importance of those video frames to his VI and having them forwarded to command.

Several men and women of first squad waited at the door as he approached.

“Report.”

“Sir, we’ve examined the locking mechanism and identified what we believe is some sort of imaging-based security system,” replied Sgt Terdus. “The blast door is quite thick, almost a quarter of a metre.”

“That will be challenging to cut through.”

He sent a message to command for a software package but they quickly replied that it was still being developed.

“Take a look at the access panel for anything obvious that might open it, but it seems like we will have to do it the hard way sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Terdus waved over another NCO, a lance corporal, and got him to work breaking it open. It was terrible security design, but it was far from uncommon to find unsecured controls for locking mechanisms or power controls for unlocking bolts on the wrong side of the security barrier. They might get lucky and find that here, though this did seem like it was professionally built, so it was unlikely, best to check though. Meanwhile he signalled to the demolition’s expert in second squad.

“Sir?” asked the corporal from second squad. His armour’s IFF named her as Sentia Dardascus.

“Start preparing to open this door,” he ordered. He didn’t need to say which. “Sergeant Terdus is currently confirming if a soft entry isn’t possible, you may begin at soon as he is finished.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cpl Dardascus waved over some enlisted personnel and started giving orders. One pulled out an ultrasonic imager designed to determine internal structures and began imaging the door for weak points, the other helped the corporal with the cutting charges.

He however turned to the reports from the other teams. Most had already secured their objectives and were in the process of cataloguing items of apparent value. Most of the prelanding estimates of locations of value appeared to be correct which was reassuring in that they had some idea how this alien species thought. No locals though, the city appeared to be completely deserted.

Finished, he went around inspecting second and third squad. They had set up in a rough half-circle around this side of the structure to provide defence, making use of available cover. A few members of first squad were facing inwards though, watching the structure’s roof while the rest were assisting with opening the blast door.

Coming back to the door her found Corporal Dardascus examining the imaging the enlisted man had gathered.

“Alright, we’ll put four cutting charges down the centre-line to cut those locking hooks and two blasting on the concrete covering those motors. We’ll do another round of cutting after we’ve removed the concrete.”

The two enlisted men placed the cutting charges sticky side to the door along the line where the two halves of the door appeared to open while the corporal placed blasting charges on the concrete. One went at ground level perhaps a quarter metre to the right of where the door met the concrete, the other one the same distance from the door but at the same level as the top of the door.

While he hadn’t checked the internal images they had gathered, he could see clearly that they were removing concrete to gain access to the traction motors that opened the doors. They weren’t after their motive power as they had the tools to pry even a heavy door open once the locks were cut so presumably some other locking mechanism was built into them.

“Sir, we will need to take cover,” said the corporal as she finished up.

He glanced about for some.

“Will this do, corporal?” he asked pointing to concrete barrier along the road a short distance away.

He had his VI distribute the order to the rest of the platoon to be prepared to move to the other side of their cover to protect them from the demolition work. While it would leave them more vulnerable to attack, any other cover option would leave them more exposed for longer.

“Yes, sir.”

The other enlisted and NCOs close to the blast door joined him crouching behind the barrier as the corporal stayed standing. She quickly scanned the area for any other personnel in the open.

“BLAST DANGER, TAKE COVER!” she shouted.

The men and women on the perimeter immediately climbed over or moved around their mix of concrete barriers and vehicles, putting the objects between them and the blast door. The corporal joined them in a crouch.

“Firing!” she continued over the comms.

There was a second before a thunderous thud that he could feel shake every part of his body. A cloud of pulverised concrete drifted over them as he looked back and saw the rest of the platoon returning to the correct side of their cover. Looking back at the clearing dust they stood up and surveyed the damage. There was a neat line of cuts down the door centreline that presumably had cut through the locking bolts while on the right had side a large amount of concrete had been blasted away exposing internal metal reinforcement bars.

The corporal and her two enlisted men brought up two more cutting charges and began affixing them to the metal reinforcement.

“This will only take a moment, sir.”

He reissued the cover order as the corporal came back. The process was much the same, though the explosion much smaller this time.

o0o0o

_“Invaders, you are warned that the colony self-destruct will activate in one-one-hundred and sixty-fifth of a planetary revolution.”_

The translator still couldn’t make out the broadcast as the blast door was pried open.

One half of the door was still locked, but using a small electrically powered jack they had forced the other half to slide open with a groan of metal. The jack didn’t have much travel so it took three goes to make the gap wide enough for an armoured turian to slip in.

“Clear!” said the man on point as he checked the immediate area on the other side of the door.

The rest of first squad followed the point man in, and he followed immediately after. The inside was as utilitarian as the outside, a room perhaps three times as wide and long as the blast door was wide. The ceiling was high, a viewing window of some sort closer to the roof than the floor was on the right-hand side and a large screen dominated the wall on the left showing an unfamiliar logo of some sort. On the other side of the room was the frame of another blast door the same size as the entranceway, though this one was thankfully open. Bold coloured lines ran along floors and up along the walls with words in alien script printed on them. In the distance through another blast door he could see the lines branching off in different directions; a simple navigation aid perhaps?

This blast door opened up into another room. There were chairs in many neat rows and what looked like personal belongings scattered about. On both the left- and right-hand side were doors to what looked like offices of some sort.

“Sir, you might want to look at this.”

The corporal was near the other exit to the room on the other side from him. He checked the video feed the corporal had forwarded him. It seemed to be a large metal cap of some sort on the concrete floor of the room. Yellow and black lines were painted on the concrete radiating out from the cap and below it was some words written in the alien language. Below that was a pictogram that appeared to depict a gun of some sort shooting an asaroid-shaped stick figure. It looked like it had risen of the floor and had a plate on top of it, much like the cap on the floor in front of him.

“Some sort of automated defence, corporal?”

“I believe so, sir.”

He considered it for a moment.

“Place some satchel charges on it. We’ll set them off if it activates. Look for more.”

He had orders to keep damage to a minimum.

“There’s another on the opposite side of the doorway, sir.”

“Good, deal with it.”

They still had no idea what this structure was. Initial thoughts were some sort of defensive bunker, like a command post or a civilian shelter, but what he had seem so far didn’t fit that mould in his mind. Of course, outside context, but everything else so far had seemed to fit the mould they had come to expect from most other alien species.

“Second squad, advance into the building and hold position in the foyer. Part of first and myself will be advancing further in.”

At least he thought it was a foyer. He marked it as such on his map though for distribution to the rest of the platoon.

The man he had assigned to the defence turrets and an enlisted man remained behind while the rest of first went through the third blast door. It clearly ran down underground from the slope, soft lighting illuminating the way.

There were two remaining colour lines on the wall but as soon as they reached level ground again the green line ran off into a smaller open blast door on the right while the orange line met a blast door as large as the first, second and third. Like the others this door was open.

His VI put them only a short distance underground, a few dozen metres or so.

He could see a large structure of some sort from where he was standing, yellow metal arms reaching out of the floor and curving down from the ceiling, wrapping around a cylindrical metal device, like two pairs claws grasping an egg. Heavy cables or pipes were draped from the arms as well, the arms loaded up with scientific and power equipment.

As his point man stepped through the blast door though the first warning was illuminated on his HUD with a warning tone.

_NUCLEAR WARNING - GAMMA AND NEUTRON ENERGIES CONSISTENT WITH FISSILE MATERIAL._

A probability of it being natural in origin was initially given a value of two-sigma but before he could blink it jumped to three-sigma, then four-sigma and on until it settled at seven-sigma.

He was about to ask himself how many billions to one seven-sigma was when another warning flashed up.

_NUCLEAR THREAT HAZARD – NEUTRON AND GAMMA FLUX CONSISTENT WITH FISSIONABLE MATERIAL CRITICAL MASS ( >5-SIGMA). FLUX BELOW ESTIMATE FOR ACTIVE POWER SOURCE (>3-SIGMA), FLUX BELOW ESTIMATE FOR INACTIVE POWER SOURCE (>1-SIGMA), FAST/THERMAL NEUTRON RATIO EXCEEDS ESTIMATE FOR THERMAL-SPECTRUM POWER SOURCE (>3-SIGMA). FLUX RANGE FITS ESTIMATE FOR WEAPON DEVICE (>4-SIGMA)._

There was perhaps four or five seconds before he processed the words. In the end it was the sound of the acknowledgement from command after his VI sent them the data that brought him back to reality.

The men and women with him hadn’t noticed the threat, their armour only feeding the data to him instead of warning them of the risk, as it was designed. They didn’t need to know yet, too much information could lead to panic. He could feel a lump in his stomach though, it was different to face death knowing that no amount of skill would save him if it went off. Nor would running save him a traitorous part of his mind whispered.

He followed them into the cavernous room. It was round, the walls made from concrete. There was a pit around the painted yellow pillar in the centre of the room with a bridge of some sort extending out to it. On the wall was some sort of control room separated by what he expected was armoured glass.

A short distance from him was a stainless-steel cylinder about a metre long and half that wide lying on its side on the ground, a computer of some sort nearby with a cable leading to the device. The turians under his command had given it the once over before spreading out, their equipment not having warned them yet. His VI though marked the device as the source of the reading before it added in the shape of the device to its probability calculations.

_NUCLEAR THREAT HAZARD – THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON DETECTED ( <5-SIGMA)._

The announcement system spoke again, broadcasting here even deep underground.

_“Invaders, you are warned that the colony self-destruct will activate in one-three-hundred and thirtieth of a planetary revolution.”_

He put it out of his mind though, his translator still not telling him what the announcement was saying.

He stared at death for a few more moments when it got a tone for an incoming voice connection. The reception here underground was poor but he could see it was going to be bounced off third squad, then second and down to where he was now. He opened the connection.

“ _Maw-three actual, this is Colonel Potasis – Do you read me?”_

“Yes, Ma’am – loud and clear.”

“ _Good. I am the most senior special weapons EOD officer in the Twenty-seventh Fleet. You must work quickly following my precise instructions. Do you have an explosives expert nearby?”_

“Yes, ma’am.”

_“Loop them in immediately.”_

He opened a secure channel.

“Corporal Dardascus, drop what you are doing and double time it to my position immediately.”

_“Yes, sir!”_

He took a second to configure the authorisation to give her access to the data feed. She was sprinting into the room as the authorisation was given. She skidded to a halt, body tense, head fixated on the probably live thermonuclear weapon in front of her. He pointed a claw at her and then at a spot in front of his feet.

“ _Corporal, you are to do exactly as I command.”_

 _“Yes, ma’am,”_ the corporal replied with a small waver in her voice.

“ _Take two type-62 shaped charges and a detonator for each, give one set to the major. Prepare both for immediate use and order the room cleared.”_

“Clear the room! Double time!” he bellowed through the radio. There were a few looks of confusion before the NCOs repeated the order.

While it had been a long time since he had handled one personally, the detonator could only fit into one hole. He screwed it in and removed the two plastic safety clips.

“ _Corporal, slave detonation for both devices together.”_

He glanced to his side to find the corporal was way ahead of him.

A small warning appeared on his HUD that the device he was holding had all safeties removed and that detonation control was in the hands of Corporal Dardascus. Another image displayed on his HUD over the nuclear weapon: two sets of locating markers and a directional vector for each.

“ _Place the shaped charges on top of the device, making sure both are correctly aligned.”_

He picked the closest, more rounded end while the corporal took the end where the connection to the computer-like device was made. It was easy to place the shaped charge in the correct location with the HUD guiding him.

“ _Step back.”_

He took a step back as his armour’s LIDAR did a quick scan.

“ _Good, leave the area immediately.”_

He was sprinting before she had finished the sentence.

_“Corporal, blow it as soon as you are clear.”_

He had a strange thought at that moment about how many lives were being risked so they could clear the danger area. It was only a window of five, maybe ten seconds at most, but it seemed bizarre. It was like he was fine with both detonating as soon as they were in the correct position, taking his life, but leaving no room for nuclear fire.

He felt the shockwave as he cleared the open blast door.

There was dust everywhere, like a thick oppressing fog that blocked the sun. His suit was blaring warnings at him, telling him of hazardous concentrations of tritium and aerosolised plutonium; a warning to not remove his helmet. He could tell there were a dozen curious looks from first squad as he got to his feet. Looking about he could see Corporal Dardascus looking at the shaking in her hands.


End file.
